Christopher Stowell

Last updated
Christopher Stowell
Born 1966 (age 51–52)
New York City
Occupation
Current group National Ballet of Canada
Former groups San Francisco Ballet

Christopher Stowell (born 1966) [1] is an American ballet dancer and choreographer. He is currently the associate artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. He was previously the artistic director of the Oregon Ballet Theatre. Before that, he danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet for sixteen years. [2]

Ballet dancer person who practices the art of ballet

A ballet dancer is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on years of extensive training and proper technique to become a part of professional companies. Ballet dancers are at a high risk of injury due to the demanding technique of ballet.

National Ballet of Canada

One of the top international ballet companies, The National Ballet of Canada was founded in 1951 by Celia Franca. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led by Artistc Director Karen Kain, one of the greatest ballerinas of her generation, since 2005. Renowned for its diverse repertoire, the company performs traditional full-length classics, embraces contemporary work and encourages the creation of new ballets as well as the development of Canadian choreographers. The company’s repertoire includes works by Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Rudolf Nureyev, John Neumeier, William Forsythe, James Kudelka, Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky, Crystal Pite, Christopher Wheeldon, Aszure Barton, Guillaume Côté and Robert Binet. The National Ballet tours in Canada, the US and internationally with appearances in Paris, London, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Hamburg, New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization. The artistic director of a theatre company is the individual with the overarching artistic control of the theatre's production choices, directorial choices, and overall artistic vision. In smaller theatres, the artistic director may be the founder of the theatre and the primary director of its plays. In larger non-profit theatres, the artistic director may be appointed by the board of directors.

Contents

Early life and education

Born in New York City, he is the son of Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, who were dancers with New York City Ballet. [3] At the age of four he moved to Germany with his parents, who danced with the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich and then became the artistic directors of the Frankfurt Ballet. [1] He moved back to the United States in 1977, when his parents became the founding artistic directors of the Pacific Northwest Ballet. [4] Christopher trained with the Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle and the School of American Ballet in New York. [2]

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and thus also in the state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

New York City Ballet American ballet company

New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946.

Germany Federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.

Career

Stowell joined the San Francisco Ballet (SFB) in 1985, where he became a principal dancer in 1990. [5] He performed in ballets such as Romeo and Juliet , Swan Lake , The Sleeping Beauty , and Othello . Stowell appeared in most of SFB's productions of George Balanchine's ballets and danced roles created for him by choreographers such as Mark Morris, William Forsythe, James Kudelka, and SFB's artistic director Helgi Tómasson. Other venues he performed at include Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and the Paris Opera. [2] He retired from the San Francisco Ballet in April 2001. [5] [6]

Principal dancer

A principal dancer is a dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company.

<i>Swan Lake</i> Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake, Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular of all ballets.

<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> (ballet) ballet composed by Tchaikovsky

The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, first performed in 1890. The music was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The score was completed in 1889, and is the second of his three ballets. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant. The choreographer of the original production was Marius Petipa.

He then worked as a teacher and coach in San Francisco, New York, Europe, and Japan. He choreographed new ballets for the San Francisco Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Diablo Ballet. [2]

Pennsylvania Ballet is a ballet company in the United States. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the company’s annual local season features six programs of classic favorites and new works, including the Philadelphia holiday tradition, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™. The company’s artistic director is Ángel Corella.

Stowell joined the Oregon Ballet Theatre as artistic director in July 2003. [5] His additions to the company's repertoire include ballets by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, Frederick Ashton, and Helgi Tómasson. Stowell has also commissioned works from choreographers such as Trey McIntyre, James Kudelka, Julia Adam and Kent Stowell. [2] By the end of the 2010-2011 season, Stowell had added 50 new works, 20 of which were world premieres. [3]

Jerome Robbins American theater producer, director, and choreographer

Jerome Robbins was an American choreographer, director, dancer, and theater producer who worked in classical ballet, on Broadway, and in films and television. Among his numerous stage productions he worked on were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof; Robbins was a five-time Tony Award-winner and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story. A documentary about his life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage, and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered on PBS in 2009 and won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award the same year.

Christopher Peter Wheeldon OBE is an English international choreographer of contemporary ballet.

Paul Taylor (choreographer) American choreographer, born 1930

Paul Belville Taylor, Jr. was an American dancer and choreographer. He was among the last living members of the third generation of America's modern dance artists. He founded the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954 in New York City.

In 2004, Stowell was named one of "25 to Watch" by Dance Magazine . [7]

Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" is an annual list published by Dance Magazine of leading young dancers and choreographers, as well as new dance companies and trends in dance. The list is printed in the January issue of the magazine each year.

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Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) is a ballet company based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It is said to have the highest per capita attendance in the United States, with 11,000 subscribers in 2004. The company consists of 49 dancers; there are over 100 performances throughout the year.

Oregon Ballet Theatre non-profit organisation in the USA

Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) is a ballet company in Portland, Oregon, United States. The company performs an annual five-program season at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and conducts regional and national tours. It was featured in the October/November 2007 issue of Pointe magazine, with principal dancer Kathi Martuza on the cover.

San Francisco Ballet U.S. ballet company

San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. San Francisco Ballet was the first professional ballet company in the United States. It is among the world's leading dance companies, presenting more than 100 performances annually, with a repertoire that spans both classical and contemporary ballet. Along with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet has been described as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today".

Fall for Dance Festival

Fall for Dance is an annual dance festival presented by New York City Center in New York City. Established in 2004 as a means to introduce new audiences to dance, and loosely based on the Delacorte Dance Festival model of the 1960s and 1970s, Fall For Dance showcases as many as five different dance companies on each of the festival's six nights. In response to the Festival's popularity, in 2006 the number of performances was expanded to ten, with four of the six programs being repeated; in 2009 the number of performances remained ten, with five programs, each repeating.

The American National Ballet (Minnesota) closed in 2006. It was a ballet company based in Duluth, Minnesota, founded by Armando Maldonado in 2001.

Lawrence Pech is a dancer, choreographer and teacher currently living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Peter Boal is artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and director of its affiliated school in Seattle, Washington. He was born in Bedford, New York, in 1965 and began studies at the School of American Ballet (SAB) at age nine.

Jeffrey Golladay is an American ballet dancer and was a member of the corps de ballet with American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

Prix de Lausanne international dance competition

The Prix de Lausanne is an international dance competition held annually in Lausanne, Switzerland. The competition is for young dancers seeking to pursue a professional career in classical ballet, and many former prize winners of the competition are now leading stars with major ballet companies around the world. The competition is managed by a non-profit foundation organised by the Fondation en faveur de l'Art chorégraphique and is maintained by various sponsors, patrons and donors.

Ballet West is an American ballet company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was founded in 1963 as the Utah Civic Ballet by Willam F. Christensen, the company's first artistic director, and Glenn Walker Wallace, who served as its first president. Christensen had previously established the first ballet department in an American university at the University of Utah in 1951.

Helgi Tomasson is artistic director and principal choreographer for San Francisco Ballet, and a former professional ballet dancer. Since assuming leadership of San Francisco Ballet, he has helped transform the company from a respected regional troupe to one of the world's great classical ballet companies. He is originally from Iceland.

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Alison Roper is an American professional ballet dancer who currently performed as a principal dancer with the Oregon Ballet Theatre until her retirement.

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Mathilde Froustey is a French ballet dancer.
She is a principal dancer of San Francisco Ballet. Mathilde Froustey was a "Sujet", soloist of the Paris Opera Ballet until 2013.

References

  1. 1 2 Raymond, Camela (June 2008). "The Purist" (PDF). Portland Monthly . Archived from the original (PDF) on January 4, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Artistic Staff: Christopher Stowell, Artistic Director". Oregon Ballet Theatre. Archived from the original on March 1, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  3. 1 2 Butler, Grant (March 19, 2011). "Christopher Stowell helps Oregon Ballet Theatre grow by leaps and bounds". The Oregonian . Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Founding Artistic Directors: Kent Stowell & Francia Russell". Pacific Northwest Ballet. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 "New dance dynasty in the Northwest". Dance Magazine. February 1, 2003. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Artistic Staff: Christopher Stowell, Resident Choreologist". Diablo Ballet. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  7. ↑ "25 to watch: Dance Magazine predicts who's new and breaking through for 2004". Dance Magazine . January 2004. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
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